Book Editor vs. Doyle Estate: Is Sherlock Holmes Still in Copyright?

3:24 PM PST 2/15/2013 by Eriq Gardner

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Movies. TV shows. Books. A new lawsuit explores whether there are elements of the popular detective story that are not in the public domain.

CBS

"Elementary"

With Warner Bros.' Sherlock Holmes films, BBC's Sherlock and CBS' Elementary, the popular detective character has been experiencing a revival of late.

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But the estate of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who created Sherlock Holmes, wants a sniff.
To many, it might seem outlandish that a character who first appeared in publication in 1887 could still be in copyright. The current U.S. law is life of the author plus 70 years or 95 years after publication, whichever is earliest.

But don't tell that to Doyle's heirs, who are objecting to new Sherlock Holmes stories about to be published in book form. The dispute just became the subject of a lawsuit that was filed Thursday.
The lawsuit comes in Illinois federal court by Leslie Klinger, an author, editor and Sherlock Holmes expert who has written the Annotated Sherlock Holmes. He also was a technical adviser on Warner Bros.' two recent films starring Robert Downey Jr. as the famous detective.
In 2011, he along with Random House and Poisoned Pen Press published A Study in Sherlock Holmes, a collection of new and original short stories by contemporary authors inspired by the Doyle canon. Klinger and her co-editor Laurie King are now preparing a sequel, In the Company of Sherlock Holmes.

Last year, agents for the Doyle estate contacted the Klinger and Random House and asserted rights. A license agreement was demanded, and an infringement threat allegedly was made. Klinger's attorney believes that that the estate had no valid rights, but to avoid litigation, Random House nevertheless entered into a license agreement for Study.
Then, in late November, the estate again demanded a licensing agreement on Company. The parties traded letters, but no deal was worked out. Instead, Klinger now is suing, citing a reasonable apprehension that the Doyle estate will file suit if the book is published. He is seeking a declaratory judgment that copyright has expired on Sherlock Holmes story elements and an order that enjoys the Doyle estate from further asserting certain rights.
Read the complaint here.
There's more to this.
Last year, we analyzed a potential legal conflict between the BBC series and the CBS show. Among the developments we pointed out was an old lawsuit that resulted after the USA Network produced a movie entitled Case of Evil about a young Sherlock Holmes. Pannonia Farms, which said it had been conveyed rights to Doyle's works, was the plaintiff. The lawsuit resulted in a judge's decision in 2004.
Doyle published most of his Sherlock Holmes work between 1887 and 1927. Anything before 1923 is likely in the public domain. The confusion comes from a bunch of stories that comprise The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, published in various periodicals between 1921 and 1927, which technically still would be within the copyright term.
In the 2004 decision, Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald counted nine of Doyle's 60 Sherlock Holmes stories still in copyright. Buchwald let USA off the hook because its TV movie was based on the many other stories in the public domain that had delineated the Holmes characters, but she left the door slightly ajar to a future lawsuit on other Sherlock Holmes work, saying, "Storylines, dialogue, characters and character traits newly introduced by the Nine Stories are examples of added contributions susceptible to copyright protection."
The new lawsuit by Klinger picks up this thread.
Although there might be stories by Doyle published late enough to theoretically enjoy copyright protection, Klinger essentially says "not so fast, your rights aren't broad."
STORY: U.K. Critics Name 'Sherlock' Best TV Show of 2012
"None of the Sherlock Holmes Story Elements first appeared in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes or in the stories that comprise the collection, and none of the Sherlock Holmes Story Elements are protected by any copyright that might still apply to The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes or its constituent stories under U.S. law."
In other words, take the character of Dr. Watson, Sherlock's sidekick. He was first introduced in 1887's A Study in Scarlet, where it was said that he was an army veteran. It wouldn't matter if Doyle's later work re-introduced this fact. If someone wanted to write a story about Watson's army career, that's subject to the public domain.
Are there other elements that the Doyle estate still maintains? Perhaps.
Klinger believes he hasn't infringed any, but the case might explore the possibilities. CBS, BBC and Warner Bros. might be watching. Then again, considering the fact that there hasn't been any big public noise from the Doyle's estate on any of these major entertainment productions thus far, deductive reasoning might lead one to conclude that there have been deals made with the Doyle estate. (UPDATE: Yes, true.)

Recorded Music Industry Posts First Revenue Growth in 13 Years

7:02 AM PST 2/26/2013 by Eriq Gardner

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Illegal peer-to-peer file sharing is also reported to be down significantly.

Two new studies released Tuesday provide some welcome news for the music industry.

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The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry reports that global revenue rose 0.3 percent last year to $16.5 billion. Although the revenue bump was modest, the IFPI says that it was the first sign of industry growth since 1999.
Digital income is fueling the economic improvement. Revenue from downloads, subscription and advertising-supported ventures grew 9 percent to $5.6 billion in 2012. The IFPI also reports that the number of people paying to use subscription services leapt 44 percent to 20 million worldwide.
"It is hard to remember a year for the recording industry that has begun with such a palpable buzz in the air," says IFPI chief executive Frances Moore.

The recording industry has been battling digital piracy since Napster was launched in 1999.
Another study out Tuesday from the NPD Group said that music file sharing declined "significantly" in 2012.
The NPD Group estimates from consumer surveys that 11 percent of Internet users ages 13 and older used P2P services to download music in 2012. That's down from one in five Internet users who were downloading at the P2P peak in 2006. It's also a steady trend. Last year, for example, NPD reported that 13 percent of Internet users were downloading music from P2P.
As for volume, NPD says there was a 26 percent decline in illegally downloaded music. Music consumers also are shifting their habits even on legal music sharing. Music files burned and ripped from CDs owned by friends and family fell 44 percent and music downloads from digital lockers decreased 28 percent.
"For the music industry, which has been battling digital piracy for over a decade, last year was a year of progress,” said Russ Crupnick, senior vp industry analysis at NPD.
No surprise who was the biggest seller in 2012.
Carly Rae Jepsen topped the 2012 global singles chart with "Call Me Maybe," which moved 12.5 million units. On the album front, Adele proved her staying power with 21, which was the year's biggest seller at 8.3 million units sold despite being released in early 2011, comfortably ahead of Taylor Swift's Red at 5.2 million.

'Storage Wars' Rigging Lawsuit: David Hester Says A&E Can't Plead First Amendment

10:50 AM PST 2/18/2013 by Eriq Gardner

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Is reality television subject to the same law that was used to clean up TV quiz shows in the 1950s?

A&E Network

In December, David Hester filed a lawsuit against A&E Television Networks, alleging that producers of Storage Wars rigged the reality television series by salting storage lockers before they were auctioned off to buyers.
It's a bold salvo which -- if Hester is successful -- could present serious implications for others in reality TV.
That is evident by a new court brief (read in full here) filed by Hester's attorneys late last week in the case. The papers attempt to explain why the First Amendment doesn't protect A&E and why 47 U.S.C. § 509, enacted following the TV quiz show scandals of the 1950s, does apply. What's more, the plaintiff is drawing the court's attention to a prior lawsuit against Survivor and a law review article that argues why it might be time that legal scrutiny is paid to unscripted television.
STORY: A&E Responds to Allegation That 'Storage Wars' Is Rigged (Exclusive)
Among the claims that Hester is bringing in his lawsuit against A&E is that the network has made unfair business practices. Hester says his claims arise from producers' conduct in alleged violation of Section 509, which prohibits "influencing, prearranging, or predetermining outcomes" in "contests of knowledge, skill, or chance."
Hester says that the defendants' alleged violation of this law has harmed him.
For 26 years, Hester has been a professional buyer of abandoned storage lockers. He says producers began salting lockers during the first season, and that after he complained, the producers stopped salting the storage units that he acquired, but continued salting the storage units acquired by other cast members. As a result of alleged "interference and manipulation of the outcomes of the auctions shown" on Storage Wars, he says that producers have made it appear that he is less skillful than his competition. He now says that others have stopped doing business with his shops, and that because of all this, he's been forced to close his store fronts.
Last month, A&E responded to Hester's claims, saying that the reality TV star was not a crusading whistleblower but rather someone who was being vindictive after contract negotiations for his future participation on the show didn't go his way.
The network, represented by Kelli Sager at Davis Wright Tremaine, is looking to defeat this unfair business claim at the early stage by pointing to its own free speech rights and making the argument that Hester is unlikely to prevail. In its anti-SLAPP in January, A&E said that it "cannot be seriously disputed" that Storage Wars is "an expressive work entitled to full First Amendment protection."
Hester, represented by Marty Singer and Allison Hart at Lavely & Singer, responds:

"It does not automatically follow that the illegal and fraudulent practices employed by Defendants in connection with the Series are also protected by the First Amendment. Hester's UCL claim does not arise from the content of the Series. Rather, Hester has alleged that Defendants have secretly assisted certain participants, staged and predetermined the outcome of the auctions portrayed in the series in violation [of] 47 U.S.C. section 509, and made false statements in a press release, denying that A&E engaged in this conduct."

The plaintiff makes this argument in an effort to show that that the lawsuit doesn't fit the first prong of California's SLAPP statute that A&E's conduct is constitutionally protected. Hester's lawyers argue that A&E's "failure to deny or refute" that it has violated Section 509 should be deemed "a tacit admission that Hester's claims in this regard are true," and that illegal conduct isn't entitled to invoke the provisions of the anti-SLAPP statute.
But even if the judge sees it differently -- that whatever A&E and Original Productions did, it arose from free speech activities like producing reality TV series -- Hester also argues that he has a likelihood of prevailing in the case. According to the latest court papers:

"A&E glibly asserts that the Series 'does not even arguably' fall within 47 U.S.C. section 509 since the auctions portrayed on the Series are not contests of chance, intellectual knowledge or intellectual skill. Perhaps A&E does not watch its own programs or minor its own website. A&E's website describes the auctions featured on the Series as contests. In a bonus clip available on A&E's website entitled 'Who Has the Best Strategy,' each of the 'Contestants,' as they are identified in the clip, discusses his or her strategy and the strategies employed by the competition..."

Hester's legal papers go on to admit there is "no published decision involving a claim that a staging the results of a reality program constitutes a violation of 47 U.S.C.."
Perhaps this is what makes this lawsuit a critical one to follow: Is reality television subject to the same law that was used to clean up TV quiz shows in the 1950s?
A&E's assertion that it's not even "arguabl[e]" is attacked by Hester's lawyers. Among the evidence presented is a 2003 lawsuit brought by a former cast member of Survivor who alleged rigging as well as a 2007 article by Kimberlianne Podlas in the Cardozo Arts and Entertainment Law Journal that's entitled, "Primetime Crimes: Are Reality Television Programs 'Illegal Contests' In Violation of Federal Law."
STORY: 'Storage Wars' Star David Hester Alleges Show Is Rigged in Lawsuit
That law review article (which is included in Hester's court papers as Exhibit H) includes a chart of reality TV shows that are characteristic of intellectual skill or knowledge including Survivor, Amazing Race, Project Runway, Top Model, American Idol and The Bachelor. The article does note, "Today's viewers are more sophisticated than those of the quiz show era and understand some of the artificiality and contrivance inherent in reality programs."
Whether or not "fake reality" -- our term -- adds up to what Podias calls "artifice or scheme" is one aspect of this provocative lawsuit. But the "quiz show law" also is being used to go beyond the mere gullibility of the viewer. Is A&E really culpable for the closing of Hester's stores? For an answer on how fake reality may or may not be liable for influencing real reality, stay tuned.

How much does it cost to buy 10,000 U.S.-based malware-infected hosts?

Posted on February 28, 2013 by ddanchev

http://blog.webroot.com/2013/02/28/how-much-does-it-cost-to-buy-10000-u-s-based-malware-infected-hosts/
By Dancho Danchev
Earlier this month, we profiled and exposed a newly launched underground service offering access to tens of thousands of malware-infected hosts, with an emphasis on the fact that U.S.-based hosts were relatively more expensive to acquire, largely due to the fact that U.S.-based users are known to have a higher online purchasing power. How much does it cost to buy 10,000 U.S.-based malware-infected hosts? Let’s find out.
In this post, I’ll profile yet another service offering access to malware-infected hosts internationally, that’s been operating since the middle of 2012, and despite the fact that it’s official Web site is currently offline, remains in operation until present day.
More details:

Sample screenshot of the underground E-shop selling access to malware-infected hosts:

The service is yet another example of a trend that’s been evident since the early days of the first Malware-as-a-Service underground market offerings, namely, the segmentation and use of perceived pricing schemes when it comes to U.S.-based malware-infected hosts. Naturally, purchasing access to U.S.-based malware-infected hosts is more expensive than, for instance, purchasing access to hosts based in Germany, Canada or the U.K., largely thanks to the fact that a U.S.-based user has a higher online purchasing power compared to the rest of the world.
If a potential cybercriminal wants to spread his fully undetectable piece of malware online, all he has to do is purchase access to the malware-infected hosts offered by such services, allowing virtually anyone access to “managed malware propagation” capabilities. The service that I’m profiling in this post is also attempting to “vertically integrate” within the cybercrime ecosystem by offering related “value added” services such as access to Socks5 servers, which are in reality malware-hosts converted to be used as anonymization proxies.
The prices are as follows:

• 1,000 hosts World Mix go for $25, 5,000 hosts World Mix go for $110, and 10,000 hosts World Mix go for $200
• 1,000 hosts EU Mix go for $50, 5,000 hosts EU Mix go for $225, and 10,000 hosts EU Mix go for $400
• 1,000 hosts DE, CA and GB, go for $80, 5,000 hosts go for $350, and 10,000 hosts go for $600
• Naturally, access to a U.S.-based host is more expensive compared to the rest of the world. A 1,000 U.S. hosts go for $120, 5,000 U.S. hosts go for $550 and 10,000 U.S hosts go for $1,000

Thanks to the rise of DIY (do it  yourself) underground market propositions, as well as managed services allowing novice cybercriminals to outsource the entire host acquisition, retention through QA (Quality Assurance), and dissemination of malicious campaigns to third-parties offering these capabilities as a service, we expect to see more of these services offering access to malware-infected hosts.

Intellectual Property and Magicians

September 10, 2007 By Ed Felten          https://freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/felten/intellectual-property-and-magicians/

Jacob Loshin has an interesting draft paper on intellectual property among magicians. Stage magic is a form of technology, relying on both apparatus and technique to mislead the audience about what is really happening. As in any other technical field, innovations are valuable, and practitioners look for ways to cash in on their inventions. They do this, according to Loshin, without much use of intellectual property law.
This makes magic, like cuisine and clothing design, a thriving field that operates despite a lack of strong legal protection for innovation. Recently legal scholars have started looking harder at such fields, hoping to find mechanisms that can support innovation without the cost and complexity of conventional intellectual property law, and wondering how broadly those alternative mechanisms might be applied.
What makes magic unusual is that practitioners rarely rely on intellectual property law even though magic tricks are protectable by patent and as trade secrets. Patent protection should be obvious: patents cover novel mechanisms and methods, which most magic technologies are. Some classic tricks, such as the saw-a-person-in-half trick, have been patented. Trade secret protection should be obvious too: how to do a particular trick is valuable business information whose secrecy can be protected by the inventor. (The audience sees the trick done, but they don’t really see the secret of the trick.)
Yet Loshin, and apparently most magicians, think that patent and trade secret are a poor fit. There are basically three reasons for this. First, part of the value of a trick is that the audience can’t figure out how it’s done; but a patent must explain the details of the invention. Second, tricks are subject to “reverse engineering” by rival magicians who watch the trick done, repeatedly, from different parts of the audience, then do experiments to try to replicate it; and of course trade secrets are not protected against reverse engineering. Third, there’s a sort of guild mentality among magicians, holding that knowledge can be shared within the profession but must not be shared with the public. This guild mentality can’t easily be implemented within current law – a trade secret must be carefully protected, and so cannot be passed around casually within a loosely defined “community”.
The result is that the guild protects its secrets through social norms. You’re accepted into the guild by demonstrating technical prowess and following the guild’s norms over time; and you’ll be excommunicated if you violate the norms, for example by making a tell-all TV special about how popular tricks are done. (There’s an exception for casual magic tricks of the sort kids do.) The system operates informally but effectively.
As a policy guy, I have to ask whether this system is good for society as a whole. I can understand why those inside the profession would want to limit access to information – why help potential competitors? But does it really benefit society as a whole to have some unelected group deciding who gets access to certain kinds of information, and doing this outside the normal channels that (at least in principle) balance the interests of society against those of inventors? It’s not an easy question.
(To be clear, asking whether something is good or bad for society is not the same as asking whether government should regulate it. A case for regulation would require, at least, that the regulated behavior be bad for society and that there be a practically beneficial way for government to intervene.)
The best argument that magicians’ guild secrecy benefits the public is that tricks are more valuable to the public if the public doesn’t know how they are done. This is almost never the case for other technologies – knowing how your iPod works doesn’t make it less valuable to you – but it just might be true for magic, given that it exists for entertainment and you might enjoy it more if you don’t know how it’s done.
But I have my doubts that publishing information about tricks actually makes them less entertaining. Goldin’s patent on the saw-a-person-in-half trick – which explains pretty clearly how to do the trick – was issued in 1923, but the trick is still a staple today. In theory, anybody can read Goldin’s patent whenever they want; but in practice hardly anybody has read it, and we all enjoy the trick despite suspecting how it’s probably done. And do we really need to read Gaughan’s patent to know how a “levitating” magician stays up in the air? Gaughan’s cleverness is all about how to keep the audience from seeing the evidence of how it’s done.
One effect of the guild’s secrecy is that the public rarely learns who the great innovators are. We know who puts on a good show, but we rarely know who invented the tricks. The great innovators may be venerated within the profession, but they’re unknown to the public. One has to wonder whether the field would move faster, and be more innovative and entertaining, if it were more open.

Pro-business groups once supported policies that advanced the common good -- including, sometimes, higher taxes. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

When the Corporate Elite Supported Raising Taxes

By Mark S. Mizruchi Mar 5, 2013 12:21 PM ET

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-05/when-the-corporate-elite-supported-raising-taxes.html

Throughout the recent debates in Washington over whether taxes should be increased, one group has consistently maintained its opposition: the leaders of American businesses.
Large U.S. corporations haven’t always been opposed to tax increases, however. In fact, as recently as 1989, and for decades before, big companies routinely called for tax increases, even on themselves, to balance the budget.
Groups such as the Committee for Economic Development, the Business Roundtable, and even the more conservative National Association of Manufacturers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called for tax increases on a number of occasions, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
In 1950, shortly after the U.S. entered the Korean War, the CED, the Chamber of Commerce and the NAM all supported increasing taxes to raise funds for the war. In March 1951, the CED recommended a $10 billion tax increase to prevent inflation. “Taxes are already very high,” the group said. “Now we need still higher taxes -- higher than we have ever had before, even at their wartime peak.”
Three years later, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower sought an extension of the wartime excess-profits tax on corporations, the CED supported the idea, drawing praise from the editorial page of the New York Times.

Fighting Deficits

Later in the decade, the group supported an increase in gasoline taxes to fund the interstate highway system. In 1966, it called for a temporary increase in the income tax to counter the deficit resulting from the Vietnam War, noting that it should be of a kind that can “yield the revenue needed, that can be quickly imposed, that will be accepted by the country, and that can be easily withdrawn when the emergency has passed.”
The Business Roundtable, a group of Fortune 500 executives that, after its formation in 1973, began to replace the CED as the leading representative for big businesses, supported tax increases for individuals even as it sought reductions in corporate taxes. In response to the deficits that resulted from President Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts, the Roundtable called for an increase in income-tax rates, even though its high-earning members would pay a disproportionate price.
As late as 1989, after George H.W. Bush was elected president on a promise of “Read my lips, no new taxes,” Fortune magazine printed a story with the headline, “CEOs to Bush: Raise Taxes Now.” Bush did in fact acquiesce to a tax increase, a decision that many believe cost him re-election in 1992.
It was only after President George W. Bush’s tax cuts created deficits even larger than those of the Reagan years that big businesses suddenly refused to call for tax increases. Despite expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which drove the deficit even higher, the Business Roundtable remained silent.
Perhaps the Roundtable had accepted Vice President Dick Cheney’s alleged claim that “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” because rather than criticizing the Bush tax cuts, the group actually supported making them permanent.
So why were large corporations, which had been willing to recommend tax increases for almost half a century, suddenly unwilling to even acknowledge the relationship between tax cuts and the deficit?

Fragmenting Elite

The answer lies in part with the fragmentation of the corporate elite. In the 1950s, business leaders had to cooperate to negotiate with both a strong labor movement and a powerful federal government. The need to work with these constituencies created a community of pragmatic businessmen who tried to devise policies acceptable to everyone at the table. But as the labor movement crumbled, and government lost some of its legitimacy, corporate elites had little incentive to build coalitions to secure favorable policies. Instead, they began unilaterally pursuing their own interests.
As a consequence, the corporate elites were increasingly unable and unwilling to act collectively to address the problems they -- and the nation -- faced. This was evident in the debate over President Bill Clinton’s health-care plan in the early 1990s, as the large corporations that supported the plan caved under pressure from Republicans in Congress, who were more responsive to small companies, opposed to the plan. It was evident during the debate over President Barack Obama’s health- care overhaul, in which large companies were largely absent from the discussion. And it remains evident in the controversy over how best to rein in the deficit.
Today’s corporate elites have abandoned their pragmatic interest in the collective good, and now pursue a far narrower quest to secure benefits for their companies. Despite a few dissenting voices, such as Warren Buffett and Robert Rubin, business leaders continue to oppose tax increases, even for those earning tens of millions yearly. Fix the Debt, a group of business and public officials devoted to reducing the deficit, has focused almost exclusively on spending cuts, referring vaguely to “revenue increases” while simultaneously advocating reduced tax rates.
The American corporate elite of the postwar period exercised a sense of responsibility, willing to support policies that would impose a disproportionate burden on its own members. The elites of today, by contrast, are extremely successful in gaining political favors for themselves, but they have shown little willingness to address problems of business-wide -- and societal -- concern.
(Mark S. Mizruchi is the Barger Family professor of organizational studies, professor of sociology and professor of business administration at the University of Michigan. His book, “The Fracturing of the American Corporate Elite,” will be published by Harvard University Press next month. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Yes, The US Industrial Revolution Was Built On Piracy And Fraud

from the a-little-history-lesson dept

Missed this when it first came out, but Bloomberg ran a fantastic report at the beginning of February, highlighting how piracy and fraud were key components to helping America catapult into the industrial revolution. In fact, there are reasonable arguments to be made that if the US was not a "pirate" nation, it would not have had the kind of success that it has had as the industrial world leader. We've discussed some of this in the past, and have highlighted how Eric Schiff's research showed how other countries (the Netherlands and Switzerland) industrialized by explicitly rejecting patents. The US didn't go that far, but it did involve quite frequent copying of the efforts of others and then improving on them, without fear of repercussions.

In its adolescent years, the U.S. was a hotbed of intellectual piracy and technology smuggling, particularly in the textile industry, acquiring both machines and skilled machinists in violation of British export and emigration laws. Only after it had become a mature industrial power did the country vigorously campaign for intellectual-property protection.

This is a point we've made many times as well. Patent and copyright system supporters frequently argue that stronger laws are needed to create incentives for creation and innovation. But, there are a ton of studies that show the actual pattern runs the other way. When you look at the pace of innovation before and after a change to patent laws, or if you do cross-country comparisons at the same time for similar types of economies, you quickly see that those with weaker laws show more innovation. The ratcheting up of patents is rarely about increasing incentives to innovate. Patents are put in place with the support of incumbents, knowing that it allows them to "exclude" competitors and upstarts. It is not a tool of innovation, but a tool to suppress disruptive innovation. Not having those laws (or having them widely ignored) leads to a situation in which people continually improve what's out there -- which is how the US economy took over the world during the industrial revolution.

The most candid mission statement in this regard was Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures,” submitted to Congress in December 1791. “To procure all such machines as are known in any part of Europe can only require a proper provision and due pains,” Hamilton wrote. “The knowledge of several of the most important of them is already possessed. The preparation of them here is, in most cases, practicable on nearly equal terms.”

Notice that Hamilton wasn’t urging the development of indigenous inventions to compete with Europe but rather the direct procurement of European technologies through “proper provision and due pains” -- meaning, breaking the laws of other countries. As the report acknowledged, most manufacturing nations “prohibit, under severe penalties, the exportation of implements and machines, which they have either invented or improved.” At least part of the “Report on Manufactures” can therefore be read as a manifesto calling for state-sponsored theft and smuggling.

In fact, as the article notes, our own original Patent Act recognized this very fact, by refusing to cover foreign inventions.

Of course, the idea that loose patent and copryight laws can help nations develop economically is not a new idea. Over a decade ago, we were writing about how various officials were admitting that strong IP laws probably did more harm than good for developing nations. And, yet, the US continues to try to push its extreme maximalism for copyright and patent laws around the globe. Either they are doing this out of ignorance (a real possibility) or because they actually understand the truth, which is that other countries with IP laws like the ones in the US will see a slow down in their economic development.

Either way, those who insist that the US was founded on the principles of strong respect for "intellectual property" haven't paid that much attention to the actual history of American industrialization.

Piracy and Fraud Propelled the U.S. Industrial Revolution

By Peter Andreas
February 01, 2013 11:24 AM EST

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-01/piracy-and-fraud-propelled-the-u-s-industrial-revolution.html

Although typically glossed over in high-school textbooks, as a young and newly industrializing nation the U.S. aggressively engaged in the kind of intellectual-property theft it now insists other countries prohibit.

In other words, the U.S. government’s message to China and other nations today is “Do as I say, not as I did.”
In its adolescent years, the U.S. was a hotbed of intellectual piracy and technology smuggling, particularly in the textile industry, acquiring both machines and skilled machinists in violation of British export and emigration laws. Only after it had become a mature industrial power did the country vigorously campaign for intellectual-property protection.
The U.S. emerged from the Revolutionary War acutely aware of Europe’s technological superiority. It aspired to catch up and rapidly close the technology gap. The prevailing hope was that the acquisition of new industrial technologies from abroad would help solve the country’s chronic labor shortage and enhance its self-sufficiency and competitiveness.
As the Pennsylvania Gazette put it in 1788: “Machines appear to be objects of immense consequence to this country.” It was therefore appropriate to “borrow of Europe their inventions.” “Borrow,” of course, really meant “steal,” since there was certainly no intention of giving the inventions back.
The most candid mission statement in this regard was Alexander Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures,” submitted to Congress in December 1791. “To procure all such machines as are known in any part of Europe can only require a proper provision and due pains,” Hamilton wrote. “The knowledge of several of the most important of them is already possessed. The preparation of them here is, in most cases, practicable on nearly equal terms.”
Notice that Hamilton wasn’t urging the development of indigenous inventions to compete with Europe but rather the direct procurement of European technologies through “proper provision and due pains” -- meaning, breaking the laws of other countries. As the report acknowledged, most manufacturing nations “prohibit, under severe penalties, the exportation of implements and machines, which they have either invented or improved.” At least part of the “Report on Manufactures” can therefore be read as a manifesto calling for state-sponsored theft and smuggling.
The first U.S. Patent Act encouraged this policy. Although the law safeguarded domestic inventors, it didn’t extend the same courtesy to foreign ones -- they couldn’t obtain a U.S. patent on an invention they had previously patented in Europe. In practice, this meant one could steal a foreign invention, smuggle it to the U.S., and develop it for domestic commercial applications without fear of legal reprisal.
The most important limitation to smuggling machines was that they were useless unless one knew how to use them. After all, they didn’t come with instructions. Thus, almost as important as the machines themselves were machinists from the British Isles who knew how to operate them. British emigration laws prohibited the departure of skilled machinists, but thousands still made the clandestine crossing to the U.S.
The most celebrated was Samuel Slater. Slater had worked his way up from a teenage apprentice to middle management at the Jedediah Strutt mills in Milford, England. Enticed by stories of opportunity and success in America, he pretended to be a non- skilled laborer and boarded a U.S.-bound ship in 1789. Leaving tools, machines, models and drawings behind, all he brought with him was his memory.
Meanwhile, in Rhode Island, the industrialist Moses Brown was looking for someone to figure out how to use the spinning machines he had illicitly imported. Slater took on the job and moved to Pawtucket. Brown’s smuggled machines proved inoperable, but Slater was able to cannibalize them for parts and build his own. Soon, Slater-style mills were proliferating, and New England cloth manufacturing increased 50-fold from 1805 to 1815.
But it was Boston businessman Francis Cabot Lowell who truly transformed New England textile manufacturing into an internationally competitive factory system. And he did so, in large part, by pulling off the most remarkable case of industrial espionage in American history.
Lowell traveled to Britain in 1810 for an extended stay, allegedly for “health reasons.” The wealthy merchant wasn’t considered a rival by local manufacturers and therefore wasn’t treated with suspicion as he toured the Glasgow factories in the spring of 1811. Soon after, he visited other factories to obtain “all possible information” on cotton manufacturing “with a view to the introduction of the improved manufacture in the United States,” as his business partner later recounted.
Lowell’s bags were searched before he returned to the U.S., but the British customs agents came up empty-handed. Lowell, who had majored in mathematics at Harvard University and had an exceptional memory, used his mind to smuggle out British industrial secrets.
With the assistance of mechanical expert Paul Moody, Lowell reproduced and even improved on the original models. Backed by his newly formed Boston Manufacturing Co., he opened his first cotton mill in Waltham, Massachusetts, in 1813. It was the first in the country to bring together all phases of the textile- production process -- from carding and spinning to weaving and dressing -- under one roof.
This all-in-one model was a transformative development in textile manufacturing, ultimately replacing the smaller family- run mill operations and making the American industry competitive with Britain for the first time. This new system also required much larger-scale investment -- exemplified by the development of an entire mill town, appropriately named Lowell.
England loosened its restrictions in phases from 1824 to 1843. The emigration bans, which cut against growing public support for freedom of movement, were lifted in 1824. While strict controls remained on the export of spinning and weaving machinery, a licensing system was implemented for other industrial equipment.
Licensing, in turn, created opportunities for new forms of smuggling: An exporter could receive a license to ship one machine and use it as a cover to ship a different one -- gambling that port inspectors would either not check beyond the paperwork or not be able to tell the difference. Apparently, this practice was sufficiently institutionalized that illicit exporters could even take out insurance to protect against the occasional seizure.
British export controls were finally repealed in 1843 with the spread of free-trade ideology. By that time, the U.S. had established itself as one of the leading industrial economies in the world -- thanks, in no small part, to the successful evasion of British emigration and export prohibitions.
(Peter Andreas is a professor of political science and the interim director of the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University. This essay is adapted from his new book, “Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America.” The opinions expressed are his own.)
Read more Echoes columns online.
To contact the writer of this post: Peter Andreas at peter_andreas@brown.edu
To contact the editor responsible for this post: Timothy Lavin at tlavin1@bloomberg.net

Bradley Manning Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize As People Begin Realizing How Damaging His Case Is To A Free Press

from the wake-up-people dept

With Bradley Manning pleading guilty to some of the lesser charges against him, Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler -- who is a possible expert witness in the trial -- has an excellent and detailed post about why the entire case against him should be seen as a threat to the nature of whistleblowing and a free press. He notes that the US prides itself on its support of the First Amendment, even in uncomfortable situations, but this case could flip that around in a very damaging way.

A country's constitutional culture is made up of the stories we tell each other about the kind of nation we are. When we tell ourselves how strong our commitment to free speech is, we grit our teeth and tell of Nazis marching through Skokie. And when we think of how much we value our watchdog press, we tell the story of Daniel Ellsberg. Decades later, we sometimes forget that Ellsberg was prosecuted, smeared, and harassed. Instead, we express pride in a man's willingness to brave the odds, a newspaper’s willingness to take the risk of publishing, and a Supreme Court’s ability to tell an overbearing White House that no, you cannot shut up your opponents.

Yet, in the case of Manning, the government is going much, much, much further. It is trying to make leaking information to the press the equivalent of espionage and aiding the enemy -- a capital offense. If you want to create chilling effects on free speech and a free press, this is how you do it. If you believe in the stories above, about the fundamental respect for the First Amendment, then the nature of the prosecution should worry you a great deal.

As for those who claim that leaking to Wikileaks is not like the Pentagon Papers or leaking something to the press, Benkler's detailed analysis shows why that's bunk. Since Wikileaks released some of the material that Manning sent them, the organization has been painted as being this evil anti-American organization, and there's also been a big spotlight on Julian Assange, who is certainly not presented as a particularly likeable character. But, as Benkler points out, before Wikileaks got that material, it was regularly seen as an upstart media property, and a great place for whistleblowers to go to expose fraud and corruption. In other words, the idea that Manning chose to go to Wikileaks to harm the US seems quite unlikely. His story of exposing wrongdoing by the US and forcing a debate on how to have America live up to its principles has more credibility when you realize just how Wikileaks was portrayed prior to Manning's material being submitted:

The reputation that WikiLeaks has been given by most media outlets over the past two and a half years, though, obscures much of this—it just feels less like “the press” than the New York Times. This is actually the point on which I am expected to testify at the trial, based on research I did over the months following the first WikiLeaks disclosure in April 2010. When you read the hundreds of news stories and other materials published about WikiLeaks before early 2010, what you see is a young, exciting new media organization. The darker stories about Julian Assange and the dangers that the site poses developed only in the latter half of 2010, as the steady release of leaks about the U.S. triggered ever-more hyperbolic denouncements from the Administration (such as Joe Biden's calling Assange a “high-tech terrorist”), and as relations between Assange and his traditional media partners soured.

In early 2010, when Manning did his leaking, none of that had happened yet. WikiLeaks was still a new media phenom, an outfit originally known for releasing things like a Somali rebel leader’s decision to assassinate government officials in Somalia, or a major story exposing corruption in the government of Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya. Over the years WikiLeaks also exposed documents that shined a light on U.S. government practices, such as operating procedures in Camp Delta in Guantanamo or a draft of a secretly negotiated, highly controversial trade treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But that was not the primary focus. To name but a few examples, it published documents that sought to expose a Swiss Bank’s use of Cayman accounts to help rich clients avoid paying taxes, oil related corruption in Peru, banking abuses in Iceland, pharmaceutical company influence peddling at the World Health Organization, and extra-judicial killings in Kenya. For its work, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's New Media award in 2009 and the Freedom of Expression Award from the British magazine, Index of Censorship, in 2008.

It's sometimes difficult to remember that, given everything that happened in the past two and a half years.

Benkler goes on to point out that the "precedents" that the US tries to rely on to argue that whistleblowing to the press is a form of aiding the enemy are ancient, obsolete and laughable. Many of the arguments go back to some Civil War-era precedents, and even then, when you look at the details you realize they were discussing something extremely different than what happened with Manning (i.e., the cases involved using the press to send coded messages about confidential info, not releasing the info to the public).

In the end, Benkler makes a powerful point:

If Bradley Manning is convicted of aiding the enemy, the introduction of a capital offense into the mix would dramatically elevate the threat to whistleblowers. The consequences for the ability of the press to perform its critical watchdog function in the national security arena will be dire. And then there is the principle of the thing. However technically defensible on the language of the statute, and however well-intentioned the individual prosecutors in this case may be, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror of this case and ask: Are we the America of Japanese Internment and Joseph McCarthy, or are we the America of Ida Tarbell and the Pentagon Papers? What kind of country makes communicating with the press for publication to the American public a death-eligible offense?

What a coup for Al Qaeda, to have maimed our constitutional spirit to the point where we might become that nation.

Given all of that, you can see why some have nominated Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. While it is highly unlikely that Manning will be given serious consideration for the prize, the more you look at the case, the more you realize how dangerous the US government's own argument is here, and how much of an attack it is on fundamental principles we supposedly believe in and fight for here in the US.

The art of war, Chinese style

Source: JT
The recent 50th anniversary of China’s invasion of India attracted much discussion, especially within India. Yet the debate shied away from drawing the broader, long-term lessons for Asian security.
The lessons are also relevant for China’s other neighbors because the 1962 war helped uncover the key elements of Beijing’s war-fighting doctrine — a doctrine it brought into play in 1969 (provoking bloody border clashes with Soviet forces), 1974 (occupying the Paracel Islands), 1979 (invading Vietnam), 1988 (seizing Johnson Reef), and 1995 (grabbing Mischief Reef). In each of those aggressions, the major 1962 elements were replicated.
As a 2010 Pentagon report citing the 1962 war, among others, put it, “The history of modern Chinese warfare provides numerous case studies in which China’s leaders have claimed military pre-emption as a strategically defensive act.” In fact, a 2010 essay in the Qiu Shi Journal — the ideological and theoretical organ of the Chinese Communist Party’s central committee — underscored the centrality of “offense as defense” in Chinese policy by declaring that “Throughout the history of new China, peace in China has never been gained by giving in, only through war. Safeguarding national interests is never achieved by mere negotiations, but by war.”
Unlike India, which still naively believes that it gained independence through nonviolence, not because a war-debilitated Britain could no longer hold on to its colonies, “new China” was born in blood after a long civil war. And it was built on blood, with Mao Zedong and other revolutionaries ever ready to employ force internally and externally. No sooner had the new China been established than it doubled its territorial size by forcibly absorbing Xinjiang and Tibet. Domestically, countless millions perished in witch-hunts, fratricidal killings and human-made disasters.
In fact, Mao attacked India after his “Great Leap Forward” created the worst famine in recorded world history, with the resulting damage to his credibility serving as a strong incentive for him to reassert his leadership through a war. The military victory over India indeed helped him to consolidate his grip on power, besides raising his international stature.
Yet, like a rape victim being scolded for inviting the attack, India was repeatedly rapped by some analysts during the anniversary debate for having brought on the Chinese aggression through “provocative” gestures and moves.
When the Chinese military marched hundreds of miles south to occupy the then-independent Tibet, bringing Han soldiers in large numbers to the Himalayan frontiers for the first time and setting the stage for China’s furtive encroachment on Indian territory, this supposedly did not constitute sufficient grounds for India to try to guard its undefended Himalayan borders. So when India belatedly deployed some units of its army, the action became, in Beijing’s words, a “forward policy” — a term lapped up by biddable analysts and still being bandied about.
India does not commemorate war anniversaries the way the United States does — with annual ceremonies honoring its fallen heroes. For example, at the exact time the Japanese began bombing Pearl Harbor 71 years earlier, commemorations were held last weekend at Pearl Harbor and memorials elsewhere, drawing thousands of Americans. India, in fact, has not built a single memorial to honor those who were martyred in 1962 or any of its other wars. China, by contrast, has a 1962 war memorial in Tibet and its Beijing military museum depicts India as the “aggressor.”
In this light, the 50th anniversary of what American scholar Roderick MacFarquhar has dubbed “Mao’s India War,” which killed 3,270 Indian troops and 725 Chinese, ought to have served as a time for reflection on its larger lessons. By baring key features of Beijing’s warfighting doctrine, the 42-day war indeed holds lasting lessons for India and other countries locked in territorial disputes with China.
Here are six of the 1962 principles China replicated in its subsequent aggressions: (1) take the adversary by surprise to maximize political and psychological shock; (2) strike only when the international and regional timing is opportune; (3) hit as fast and as hard as possible by unleashing “human wave” assaults; (4) be willing to take military gambles; (5) mask offense as defense; and (6) wage war with the political objective to “teach a lesson” — an aim publicly acknowledged by Beijing in the 1962 and 1979 attacks.
The Chinese strategy to choose an opportune moment to strike became evident before 1962 when China invaded Tibet in October 1950 while the world was preoccupied with the Korean war. China’s rapid success in seizing eastern Tibet emboldened it to intervene in Korea.
The classic case of opportunistic timing, however, was 1962: The attack coincided with the Cuban missile crisis, which threatened to trigger nuclear Armageddon and helped cut off India from potential sources of international support. But no sooner had the U.S. signaled an end to the faceoff with the Soviet Union by terminating Cuba’s quarantine than China declared a unilateral cease-fire. Such was the shrewd timing that throughout the Chinese attack, the international spotlight remained on the U.S.-Soviet showdown, not on China’s bloody invasion of India.
Similarly, China seized the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam in 1974 after the U.S. military withdrawal from there had created a strategic vacuum. It occupied the disputed Johnson Reef in the Spratlys in 1988 when Moscow’s support for Vietnam had petered out after the Soviets stopped using Cam Ranh Bay as a major forward deployment base. And in 1995, China seized Mischief Reef when the Philippines stood isolated after having forced the U.S. to close its major military bases at Subic Bay and elsewhere on the archipelago.
The 1979 attack on Vietnam occurred after Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping convinced U.S. President Jimmy Carter during his Washington visit that a “limited military action” against Vietnam was essential to contain Soviet and Vietnamese influence in Southeast Asia and to force Hanoi to withdraw its forces from Cambodia. After 29 days, China ended its Vietnam invasion and withdrew, claiming Hanoi had been sufficiently chastised.
It is apparent that new China hews to ancient theorist Sun Tzu’s advice: “All warfare is based on deception. … Attack where the enemy is unprepared; sally out when it does not expect you. These are the strategist’s keys to victory.”
Brahma Chellaney is the author of “Asian Juggernaut” (Harper, 2010) and “Water: Asia’s New Battleground” (Georgetown University Press, 2011).

Dear Hollywood: Hire Better Shills

from the wow dept

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a puff piece showing just how much work it is for NBC Universal to keep fighting all those darn pirates. It's basically a propaganda piece starring Rick "Save the Corn Farmers!" Cotton, NBC's general counsel who fights piracy the way that Captain Ahab chases Moby Dick. There are all sorts of problems with the piece, including the fact that it appears to believe that just because NBC is sending a lot more takedowns, it means that the "problem" is growing. Of course, as we were just discussing last week, when you look at the actual data, it makes a pretty clear case for anti-piracy efforts doing nothing to stop piracy, but investment in lots of innovative startups providing consumers what they want being the path to success. But, that's not Cotton's style.

Anyway, Janko Roettgers, over at PaidContent, wrote a nice post debunking much of the story, which quickly got three comments that all sounded vaguely similar in their poor use of the English language -- all of which tried to spin the story into "proof" that greater enforcement, such as the six strikes effort, was needed. Two of them make the laughable claim that each infringement represents "lost revenue." That's not how it works. Here's one of the three comments:

I’m glad the author is pointing out what is pretty clear to people who browse the internet everyday, piracy is still widespread and is evolving every year. Not even taking into account the huge piracy issues overseas, each of these takedown requests represents lost revenue for both views and time spend tracking and reporting this illegal behavior. NBC will and should continue to do this because legal viewing of their content is vital for their business. But the better long term solution is to create a system where NBC isn’t playing a carnival game just to receive the proper copyright benefits for the content they invest so much in.

Of course, the real way to get to that "long term solution" is for NBC to stop playing the carnival game of takedowns -- which do nothing to reduce infringement -- and focus on making sure its content is more widely available from more legitimate sources.

Either way, Janko quickly pointed out that, in a surprise to no one, it was pretty clear that the comments were from DC-based hired shills for the entertainment industry:

Kelseliz, AlexB and SteveFeather, I’m glad you all enjoyed my story. However, I’m not too surprised you all share the same point of view. After all, the three of you commented from the same Washington D.C.-based IP address, and one of the email addresses you left points to a D.C. lobbying firm that gets paid by major labels, rights holder groups and movie studios… but I’m sure that’s all just one big coincidence.

I know that it's common in our comments for people to accuse others of being "shills." Frankly, people jump to the shill label way too fast. While it is clear that some of our commenters do work in the industry, there are very few indications that they are paid to be propaganda spreaders, and I try to give them the benefit of the doubt (similarly, I would urge our commenters to stop throwing around the "shill" term so readily -- unless there's actual evidence, don't leap to unsupported conclusions). That said, in this case it seems pretty blatant that some entertainment industry "friends" from a DC lobbying group are now out trying to spread a very poorly argued concept that we somehow "need" six strikes. I'd suggest that the RIAA, MPAA and others might find better ways to spend their money.

NBC’s piracy takedowns skyrocket: Wait, wasn’t file sharing supposed to be dead?

By Janko Roettgers

1 day ago

photo: Steenbergs

Summary: File sharing is exploding, and the studios are barely keeping up fighting the pirates: That’s the gist of a WSJ story detailing NBC’s anti-piracy work. But is it really that simple?

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NBC’s Los Angeles-based anti-piracy unit sent out 3.9 million takedown notices for pirated content last year, according to a Wall Street Journal report from Monday. Three years earlier, NBC sent out just 427,000 such notices.
Piracy is exploding, and NBC is barely keeping up fighting back: That’s the message of the story, which details the work of the studio’s anti-piracy unit at length. Here’s the thing about that notion: It runs counter to some of the common narrative we’ve seen with regards to piracy in recent years. Piracy was supposed to be on the decline, we’ve heard time and again, with Netflix and others offering legal alternatives that are simply more convenient.
And there’s been numbers to back this notion up: In 2010, 19.2 percent of all residential U.S. Internet traffic during peak times was caused by P2P file sharing, according to traffic management company Sandvine. In the second half of 2012, that number was down to 12 percent. Netflix traffic, on the other hand, exploded during the same time.
So what’s going on here? Is piracy getting worse, is Netflix winning or is it all just business as usual? The answer probably depends on who you ask, but here are a few points worth considering:

• BitTorrent is still growing, just more slowly. Or in the words of Sandvine: “In absolute traffic level, BitTorrent has risen in volume by over 40%, but the application continues to exhibit a steady downward trend in overall traffic share.” That means people are still downloading growing amount of movies and TV shows via BitTorrent, but Netflix and others are just growing faster.
• BitTorrent’s not the only game in town anymore. Pirates have been using one-click file hosters and streaming sites hosted in countries with more legal flexibility for some time now, and streaming sites, especially, are starting to play an increasing role for TV show piracy.
• The world isn’t flat. Sandvine’s numbers in particular have shown a significant slowdown of file sharing in the U.S., but abroad, things look very different. The existence of release windows has in many countries led to a whole generation of TV viewers who watch U.S. movies and TV shows online, something that was echoed by the WSJ piece:

“Rick Cotton, general counsel of NBCUniversal, who oversees the company’s antipiracy unit, said piracy is a particularly big problem overseas. For example, he said that revenue for its Spanish home-entertainment unit declined 62% between 2009 and 2011, mainly because of piracy, and NBC shut it down.”

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• Takedowns don’t equal downloads. That’s an important point that was somehow lost in the Wall Street Journal’s story. The number of takedown notices sent out by NBC isn’t exactly the best indicator for actual piracy levels. Sure, one could argue that the growing supply of pirated sources also indicates a growing level of demand for pirated content. However, the fleeting nature of piracy makes it hard to actually quantify any of this, in part because P2P file sharing works without hosted copies of content. It doesn’t really matter whether ten or a thousand sites link to the same torrent, shared by the same number of people — except if you want to send takedowns to all of these sites.
• Curious timing, anyone? The WSJ story remarked that studios hardly ever talk about their own anti-piracy efforts, but went on to say that “NBCUniversal gave the Wall Street Journal a rare peek inside the cat-and-mouse game its security team plays with suspected pirates.” Of course, one should note that NBC’s corporate parent Comcast just implemented a six strikes copyright enforcement scheme on its own broadband service last week. In light of that step, the story reads a bit like a plea for sympathy: Look, we had to step up our game because takedowns alone weren’t working!

So what’s the takeaway from this? For one, piracy is obviously alive and well, and it’s still a huge headache for studios like NBC. But Sandvine’s numbers also show that piracy’s growth can be contained, especially in markets with compelling legal alternatives. However, expanding these efforts is hard work that takes time, money and the will to change up some of Hollywood’s rules. Expect many more stories about piracy whack-a-mole in the meantime.

Report: commercial drone operators in US ignoring federal regulations restricting drone flights

By Madison Ruppert    http://endthelie.com/2013/03/04/report-commercial-drone-operators-in-us-ignoring-federal-regulations-restricting-drone-flights/#axzz2MhpwldnI
Editor of End the Lie

(Image credit: kekko72/Flickr)

According to a new Reuters report, individuals using drones for commercial purposes in the United States are in some cases simply ignoring the federal regulations that restrict drone flights and in others using clever tricks to avoid the regulations entirely.
Commercial use of drones domestically is just one aspect of the massive drone boom that has pushed colleges and universities to offer more drone piloting programs. Currently, no one even knows how many entities are cleared to fly drones by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
While commercial use is indeed concerning, we cannot ignore the military use of drones domestically in concert with law enforcement (something which is disturbingly common), the fact that Customs and Border Protection uses drones capable of intercepting electronic communications and identifying people on the ground, nor the Department of Homeland Security use of drones, the constantly growing list of public entities allowed to fly drones, the Marshals Service use of drones, the use by National Guard units and so much more.
When it comes to the regulations restricting commercial drone use, some say they are simply unenforceable.
“How do you possibly enforce these regulations?” Patrick Egan, editor of sUAS News and consultant to the US military, said to Reuters.
Even when people do follow the regulations, they are apparently quite easily circumvented. One company, ImageMark Strategy and Design, offers drone-powered aerial photo and video services to clients including real estate firms, universities and golf resorts.
When they found out about the FAA restrictions on commercial drone use, partner Scott Benton said they simply changed it up slightly to “charge clients for editing and post-production work, not the drone flights.”
If that’s all it takes to get around the limitations on commercial drone use, it is hard to say that the regulations do anything meaningful at all.
According to Reuters, this type of argument is offered by many other commercial drone operators. Some claim they operate only on private land while others say they are not selling the drone flight time but instead selling the data captured by the drone.
Even when a News Corp-owned news website used a drone in Alabama, Missouri and North Dakota to capture footage of flood damage, an FAA investigation only resulted in a warning according to statements from a spokesman to Reuters.
A News Corp spokesman would not issue a comment to Reuters and it remains unclear what exactly that warning involved.
While some dodge the regulations, others just ignore them completely.
“Honestly? My hope is that I’m far afield enough and small enough potatoes to the FAA that I can fly under the radar on this one,” said one anonymous commercial drone operator to Reuters.
Egan is apparently even more concerned with the potential commercial uses than use by police, a perspective which I personally find quite odd.
“I’m less worried about the police getting a fleet of drones than I am about the news media,” Egan said. “Imagine what it will be like when the paparazzi can send a fleet of drones into the Hollywood hills.”
Egan’s perspective is quite unusual since many people are indeed troubled by the prospect of police using drones on a regular basis and have taken action to restrict use by law enforcement.
Seattle’s mayor forced the city’s police to abandon their drone program and an anti-drone resolution has been passed in Charlottesville, Virginia with a state-wide moratorium in the works as well.
Similarly, efforts to restrict drone use are sweeping the nation and federal action has become a real possibility as well.

More at EndtheLie.com - http://EndtheLie.com/2013/03/04/report-commercial-drone-operators-in-us-ignoring-federal-regulations-restricting-drone-flights/#ixzz2Mhq4sFI0

where r these ass pipes coming from ?  folks you can't make THIS shit UP :0               

Tax Bicyclists For Exhaling CO2 When They Ride, Says Wash. Rep

truther March 5, 2013

AP

Taxing the air we breathe may be coming to Washington state.  Yes, the insane taxing of every behavior is rising to a whole new level with the proposed “bike tax” in Washington.

According to lawmakers who proposed the bike tax, it would help raise $1 million over the next decade to be used for road maintenance. The new $25 tax will be applied on every bike sold for over $500 in the state.

One Washington lawmaker is making twisted argument in support of the new fee. Rep. Ed Orcutt wrote in an email to a bike shop that the CO2 that bicyclists exhale while riding is just one of the reasons he supports the bike tax.

“Since CO2 is deemed a greenhouse gas and a pollutant, bicyclists are actually polluting when they ride,” Orcutt wrote. Therefore, they should pay taxes to help the environment as well as the roads.
Here is his full email:

Article source:
http://www.kgw.com/news/local/Wash-reps-email-drawing-ire-from-bike-community-194553321.html

Martial Law: Tucson City Council Hands Authority Over to Military

truther March 5, 2013

Kurt Nimmo
Infowars

On February 20, 2013, the Tucson, Arizona City Council passed a resolution allowing the U.S. Air Force to “make appropriate decisions when balancing National Security and community needs when it comes to their existing and future military mission and assignments.”

 

In other words, the resolution allows the military to reject decisions made by the people of Tucson.

The resolution is posted on the Tucson government website (as of this writing) and further states that it “is necessary for the preservation of the peace, health and safety of the City of Tucson that this Resolution become immediately effective, an emergency is hereby declared to exist and this Resolution shall be effective immediately upon its passage and adoption.”

In short, the Council has imposed what for all practical purposes is a declaration of martial law on the residents of Tucson.

According to the Military Law Dictionary, “Martial law is defined as the imposition of military rule over a particular region on an emergency basis” and the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus is routinely denied during its tenure.

The resolution does not, however, implement full-blown martial law but rather a limited version that permits the Pentagon to decide what municipal laws it will obey when dealing with civilians.

The public was not allowed to voice its opposition and Council members were not permitted to discuss the resolution, as noted by the meeting notice and agenda posted on the city government website.

“Matters listed under the Consent Agenda are considered to be routine and will be enacted by one motion and one vote,” the agenda states. “There will be no separate discussion of these items. If discussion is desired by members of the governing body, that item will be removed from the Consent Agenda and will be considered separately.”

The Department of Defense initially made the power grab in response to civilian complaints about military flights over the city.

“This resolution will allow DM to increase by at least two-fold or more, the number of overflights of the very densely populated midtown Tucson, and allow round-the-clock overflights, and the introduction of whatever aircraft they wish, in whatever numbers they wish…. including the hearing-damaging accident-waiting-to-happen-experimental F-35!” Occupied Tucson Citizen reported.

“The use of the term ‘emergency’ is particularly despicable! In this case, it is not even stated what constitutes the so-called “emergency”, but is obviously being used to get around the fact that it was passed in great haste and secrecy, so as not to alert citizens of how they are being shafted!”

Infowars.com has moved copies of the above linked PDFs to its server due to past instances where government has removed documents:

Resolution 22006

Mayor and Council Regular Meeting Notice & Agenda